Capital out of loop as container ships grow

By PAM GRAHAM

Shipping boss Tony Gibson will not be watching the pride of the fleet from the window of his harbour-front office.

The Wellington-based managing director of P&O Nedlloyd last week cut the capital city from his company's schedule for new super container ships.

The service, which replaces several existing services, offers a standard product: calls at Auckland, Napier and Dunedin on the same day each week on bigger vessels that are cheaper to run.

The containers have refrigeration units in them, reducing handling.

Gibson, a globetrotting New Zealander who has returned because his teenage daughters in school in Wellington said, "Dad, we're not leaving", has worked in East Africa, Asia and Europe.

He has been working on projects for Royal Nedlloyd that "get standardisation towards customer and supplier and bring down your transaction costs".

He said the decision to cut the port of Wellington from the new service between New Zealand and Europe was "a hard call because they had a very good management team", but there were larger issues.

The project had been evaluated since 1986.

"It's indeed a new era for New Zealand," Gibson said, although the competition was offering similar services and they were now building ships nearly twice the size of the supercontainers coming to New Zealand.

The new service would not necessarily increase exports because many markets were subject to quota but "exporters are very happy about it".